The Power of Time
by Cordelia Rose
Summary: Sequel to More Gained, None Lost. Merlin has been rescued from Morgana's clutches but the recovery process will be long, and it's not just Merlin's physical state that needs time to recover.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1_

 _Warning/s: Mentions of injuries etc._

 _Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin._

 _A/N: Hello everybody! I'm back with the (hopefully) long-awaited sequel to More Gained, None Lost! It's been a while but you know me - I'm not good at punctuality. And I am now doing A-levels which take up so much of my time, especially considering I'm doing History (which is more like doing two separate courses in the time of one) and my mental health is steadily declining once more! Anyway, I hope this sequel lives up to all of your hopes, dreams and expectations (ha of course it won't) and please leave me a review so I know what you're thinking! I love you all x_

* * *

"I'm fine," Merlin grumbled, squirming in Percival's arms. As soon as the king had hurried into the castle's courtyard with dirtied armour and an expression of grim determination, the people had scattered to the edges, watching the events closely. That of course meant that now everyone was staring at Merlin, who had just enough energy left to be mortified.

"That's the last thing you are," Gwaine reprimanded him in an oddly stern, mother-hen kind of way. It took Merlin by such surprise that he fell silent and ceased moving, blinking at the sky listlessly. He hadn't realised until now just how dearly he'd missed the sky.

He heard the knights muttering to each other, their voices all around him, blurring into one. He thought that they were probably talking about him but his brain was so fuzzy that he couldn't bring himself to care, and soon he slipped in a deep slumber.

* * *

"But he will be okay?"

Merlin stirred groggily. There was a thin sheet over him, and a soft mattress underneath him. Without making a sound – even if he wanted to cry out, his throat was so dry that he doubted he could – he forced his eyelids open. Dim light hurt his eyes, and a crackling fire caught his attention. By it stood the king, who was staring pensively into the fire. Gaius was sitting near to him, exhausted and strained looking. Merlin instantly felt a stab of guilt – it was probably his current state that had Gaius so weary. The knights were scattered around the room in various positions. Percival and Elyan were sitting at one of Gaius's work stations; Leon was sitting alone at a small table, scribbling furiously on some parchment, his face illuminated by a flickering candle. Gwaine was perched on a comically low stool next to the patient cot, where Merlin was laid. Merlin had to stifle a laugh at Gwaine's appearance; he had removed half of his armour and one of his boots but nothing else, and there were three half-eaten apples on a table by him, in varying states of decay. His legs were stuck straight out in front of him and his arms were crossed petulantly.

Merlin reached out with his left arm, the one closest to Gwaine, intending to poke him. He stopped in amazement when he saw that his hand was practically one giant bandage from all of the individual lengths of cloth concealing his skin. Forgetting that his throat felt like it was full of ash and his mouth was dryer than Gaius's sense of humour, he exclaimed (in an incredibly hoarse and cracked voice), "What happened to my hand?"

The reaction in the room was instant. Leon upset his candle and cursed, a rare occurrence, Percival and Elyan started upright so quickly that they banged heads, Gaius's weathered face broke into a smile, Arthur almost jumped into the fire in a very unkingly manner, and Gwaine took a prompt journey to the floor backside first.

Merlin took all of this in with mild bemusement.

"You're awake!" Arthur said, rather brilliantly.

Merlin blinked at him. "Gwaine fell off his chair," he pointed out. He had been out for maybe a few hours, judging by the lack of sunlight outside. Gwaine falling over was infinitely more interesting than him waking up.

Arthur blinked back at him, then asked slowly, "Do you remember anything that's happened?" He sounded very cautious and un-Arthur, and something in Merlin flared up. The least Arthur could do was be himself, damn it.

"Are you talking about the part when you found out about my magic or the part when Morgana captured me for her nefarious means?"

If Arthur was put out by the 'magic' part of things, he didn't show it, but at the latter half of Merlin's speech, he grinned. "Oh, nefarious." He raised his eyebrows. "That's a big word, where did you find that one?"

Gwaine, meanwhile, had picked himself up from the floor with as much dignity as one in his situation could muster, and was now pouring a large glass of water. "Drink," he insisted, pushing the cup into Merlin's hands. The servant obeyed happily, washing away the glass shards in his throat.

"You fell off your chair," Merlin said to him as soon as he'd finished. Gwaine just blinked at him. Really, Merlin knew he was the one who'd started this trend of blinking aimlessly, but it was starting to get very annoying.

"Gaius, is he concussed?" Leon asked, having righted his candle and mopped up the spilt wax.

"I rather fancy that he's just Merlin," came his mentor's quietly amused voice. Then, suddenly, Gaius himself appeared in Merlin's line of vision. "How are you feeling, my boy?"

Merlin considered for a second; how was he feeling? "I'm not feeling anything," he said eventually and quite truthfully.

Gaius nodded approvingly. "That will be the pain tonic I gave you. You were in a bad way when you got here. Luckily I've managed to treat most of your injuries, though they're not healing quite as well as they should have done over this amount of time."

Merlin frowned at him. "Well, it's only been a few hours," he pointed out, though there was a prick of unease inside him now.

"Mate, you've been out for two weeks," Gwaine practically yelped. He was marginally quelled by Gaius's stern look, and even more so when he noticed Merlin's distress.

"Two weeks?" Merlin repeated. He felt bubbles of panic rising inside him, but decided to wait until after the knights gave him some privacy to have what Gaius called 'panic attacks'. So the obvious solution (only temporary, but still) was to deny everything. "No, you're wrong," he said cheerfully, swallowing his anxiety. "It's been five hours tops."

Gaius recognised what his ward was doing immediately and began to shoo the knights out from his chambers. "I fear Merlin has some severe memory loss," he said over their protests. I must run some tests and for that I will need complete focus. Come back after an hour has passed.

As soon as the knights and a very disgruntled king had been ejected, Merlin gave himself in to panic. He bent over and pressed his face into his knees, breathing furiously. Panic swelled over him in waves. His hearing was fuzzy. His eyesight turned black. Gaius was speaking but he heard only a faint humming. His mind was racing and not working at the same time. He tipped over on his side, only realising a second later that it was Gaius who was turning him over and not gravity.

There were a million hands on his back and only two at the same time, and one voice and a thousand all telling him to breathe deeply. Eventually he found himself able to obey the commands and breathed in through his nose and let the same breath out from his mouth.

When he was able to sit up he did so, and the first thing he said to Gaius was, "Two weeks?"

The physician nodded gravely. "I'm afraid so," he said gently. "It is for the best."

"How?" Merlin spat. Two weeks of his life wasted. Two weeks when Arthur and Camelot were vulnerable to Morgana or any other enemy. How could destiny have let him down so greatly?

"Your magic was damaged," Gaius explained. "Everyone could tell. Everyone could feel it; after a week it seemed to recover. But then there were your physical injuries. They still aren't healing well."

"My magic usually helps them to heal," Merlin said in a half-whisper. He still wasn't used to discussing his magic out loud without casting any sound-blocking spell around them first.

"I think Morgana may have cast some kind of spell," Gaius said solemnly. "One that prevents your wounds from healing as well."

"Of course," Merlin muttered, pulling the blankets up over himself. "Of course she would."

"I think I have managed to reverse it," Gaius carried on, ignoring his negative words. "It will still take a while though, because it stopped the healing process early on. Therefore you must stay absolutely still and allow yourself to heal." The last part was accentuated with a raised eyebrow and a stern look in his direction.

"Fine," Merlin grumbled, but really he was quite happy about that verdict. He felt drowsy now, even though he had barely moved. "I'm going to go back to sleep," he told Gaius, and settled back down. He was asleep within minutes.

* * *

 _A/N:_ _oh dear this is terrible_


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

 _Warnings: ?_

 _Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin_

 _A/N: Chapter 2 is here to stay and I am now 5% fluent in Dutch_

* * *

Gwaine had been doing a decent job of keeping him entertained for the past few days, but he had finally exhausted every single tavern story that he had in his arsenal and now he was left to stare at the ceiling, chewing on a piece of hay absent-mindedly.

Merlin watched his friend for a little while, noticing the stress on his face and the tense posture of his body that he permanently wore now for fear of Merlin becoming ill, and then eventually slid a book across the table to himself. He was bored and he might as well read.

Gwaine jumped as the book sailed past his eyes and into Merlin's hands. "You need to teach me that," he said admiringly. "Imagine how little effort I'd have to put into everything."

Merlin snorted as he opened the book. "Trust me, Gwaine – magic takes a lot more effort than just doing the stuff. When you're healthy, at least."

Gwaine eyed him. "Still, it would be a cool trick to show the ladies."

Merlin, having opened the book, promptly dropped it over his face so he could groan dramatically. "Remember when I said earlier that I was born with magic and that's why I can do it with such ease?" he said tiredly.

"Yup."

"Well, when I said that, I was insinuating that if you're not born with magic, even the smallest of actions is extremely tiring."

"I could practice."

"I am going to start crying, Gwaine, please be quiet."

"Okay, okay, I will be if you just answer one more thing for me?"

Sigh. "Fine."

Gwaine proceeded to ask the most dirty, most revolting, most sexual question that Merlin had ever heard in his life, and had never even thought was possible to ask. Merlin was suddenly glad for the suffocating weight of the book on his face because it hid his furious blush. "Gwaine," he said firmly.

"Yeah?"

"I have never tried to do that, I will never try to do that, and even if you could do it without collapsing from the energy it would use, I would not try it because it…it's just wrong, Gwaine."

"Nah. You know what's wrong? You, lying here in bed, when you could be wandering around the castle and wooing all the ladies with your magic."

Merlin had brightened at the idea of getting out of bed, but he frowned again at the end of his friend's sentence. "Magic needs to be kept a secret, remember?"

Gwaine sighed overdramatically. "Fine," he pouted. "But we could still go and see some of the maids in the kitchen. They're all asking over you, and if you're getting better, and generally being all soppy over you."

"Was Anna there?" Merlin asked curiously. She was sweet and tended to display her affection in odd ways, such as punching people's arms (very like Arthur) and by telling them to 'shut up before I make you' when they told a good joke, or threatening them with evisceration. Still, Merlin got on well with her, and harboured the suspicion that the more she insulted people, the more she liked them. Following that hypothesis, she must love him to bits.

"Oh, Anna was there. She hit me, told me to look after you or she'd disembowel me, and then gave me a hug that was more like a rugby tackle."

Merlin smiled. "Good old Anna," he said fondly. "So, shall we go?" He removed the book from his face and gave Gwaine his best pathetic look. "I'm really bored."

Gwaine, instead of grinning and helping him up like he was meant to at this point, sighed heavily, his face falling. "I forgot how bad you looked while the book was covering your face," he said gently, scratching his neck.

"That's nice," Merlin said pointedly, trying to distract Gwaine from the topic of his many injuries that were still present. Gwaine cracked a grin at that and reached out to help him out of bed, handing him the wooden crutches that Gaius had fashioned for him. They fitted under his shoulders and for extra stability he could grip them with his hands, but his left arm still screamed in pain whenever he moved it so he generally tried not to.

"Kitchens first?" Gwaine asked. Merlin shook his head.

"Too hot," he explained. "Outside?"

"Sure. You know where Gaius has gone? I don't want him telling me off for taking you out."

"Gaius is right here and I have to say, Sir Gwaine, that your predications are entirely correct," came a stern voice from the doorway. Merlin frowned in disappointment and dropped his crutches sulkily. Gaius hobbled over and helped him back into bed; Gwaine hovered in the background looking uneasy, and considering whether or not to flee.

Merlin watched happily as Gwaine was scolded like a little child. There were some things in life that he could enjoy, at least. The small use of magic with the book earlier had exhausted him. Usually it wouldn't even require effort, but recently even those little things had made him breathless and with palpitations. His heart was beating fast now just from standing out, so maybe Gaius was right to ban any excursions.

At some point he must have drifted off, because when he next remembered opening his eyes all he saw was Gaius preparing vials of medication, and no Gwaine in sight. No knights in sight, for that matter, which was bizarre; usually there was at least one hovering around his bedside, eager to help if they ever could or ask him curious questions about his magic. Most of them weren't quite as vulgar as Gwaine though.

"Gaius?" he mumbled, closing one eye. Even though evening had fallen at some point and the room was lit by only a few candles, the light was still hurting his eyes.

"Yes, my boy?"

"When will this spell wear off? The one that makes me heal slower." He was so tired of just lying around all day, but when he tried to do anything remotely requiring effort, he was so exhausted that he slept for hours or even days.

"I doubt it will ever wear off," Gaius said, removing his glasses. He peered at Merlin, obviously noting his restlessness and annoyance. "It is merely due to the extent of your injuries that she inflicted upon you that it is taking quite so long to heal fully. In the future, smaller injuries might take a few days, maybe a few weeks for those moderately bad, to heal completely but it should not impair you."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Gaius, I get hurt every day from my magical…skirmishes. At this rate, I'll just be a walking pile of bruises and broken bones."

"Stop complaining," Gaius told him sharply. Merlin glowered at him. He thought, in this position, he had every right to complain. He voiced as much to Gaius who told him to shut up and then resumed reading his book.

Merlin decided just to go back to sleep, but before he could even close his eyes, he felt a jolt of severe pain to his stomach and reached over to vomit over the side of the bed. He remembered the sound of Gaius's chair scraping back as the aged man pushed himself up, and then his world went red then white then black.

* * *

 _A/N: cliffhanger lmao_


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

 _Warning/s: Some gore, blood mentions etc._

 _Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin._

 _A/N: I feel like this chapter declined in quality as it went on_

* * *

Gaius peeled back Merlin's shirt with trembling hands and gaped at the sight that met him. When Merlin had been brought to him, one of the hardest tasks had been sealing up a large cavernous wound running jagged across his stomach that was on the brink of infection. Now it was open again, oozing pus and blood and ugly.

"Oh, my boy," Gaius murmured, stilling for a moment in pure horror. Then he shook off his personal front and put on his physician front once more, and immediately hurried across the room to fetch a bucket and rags. He placed a rag just slightly inside the wound to collect the small but ever growing lake of blood that was pooling inside the wound, and then practically sprinted to the door.

Luck was on his side; a maid girl was passing by, and he yelled at her to fetch the King and his Knights of the Round Table, and then as an afterthought threw the bucket to her and ordered her to collect some water after she'd done that.

He hobbled back into the room before she had recovered from the shock of having a bucket thrown at her by Camelot's aged, experience and well-respected physician, and hurriedly grabbed a small pouch of potent herbs that he kept on his table, now that Merlin was in such a critical state.

Merlin was breathing shallowly, his face creased in pain despite his unconsciousness, and the edges of the wound an angry, raging, livid red, especially vivid in contrast to the pallor of the rest of his skin, which had faded to a disturbing greying hue and could no longer be healthy. Gaius frowned down at him and fiddled with the pouch in his hand; the knights needed to get there soon.

Right on cue, Arthur burst into the room, instantly paling when he saw Merlin, and then paling some more when he caught sight of Merlin's wound. "What happened?" he asked hoarsely, creeping forwards slowly as if his footsteps would make Merlin's condition worse.

"He has been moving around too much," Gaius replied tersely. He was well aware that this was his own fault for permitting Merlin to sit up and talk so much, and right now there was no option for him to beat himself up. So Arthur would have to bear the brunt of it for now, while he was focused on saving Merlin's bloody life. "The wound has reopened and from the looks of things, it has been getting infected for quite a while. He is slipping away quickly."

Gwaine barged in just in time for that last sentence, and almost tripped over a small stool in shock. "Don't let him die!" he bellowed, and it was at that point when the rest of the knights stumbled in after him.

Soon Gaius had a room full of babbling, confused knights, including one king, and a very sick patient who he couldn't think how to treat. "Quiet!" he finally shouted, silencing everyone in one swoop. He thought that even Merlin stopped breathing for a second; on second thoughts, maybe that wasn't such a great thing.

"Merlin is going to die from this infection and blood loss if I do not act quickly and efficiently. And the only way I am going to be able to keep Merlin alive is if I perform a magic ritual which will give some of your life energy to Merlin, who desperately needs it right now. I am capable of performing this, I have the means to perform this, and once he is stable I can clean and heal this wound. All I need are for you all to agree to this and partake in the ritual."

Arthur sprang forward like a young puppy, with the others hot on his heels. Clearly there was no debate to be found here; Gaius opened the pouch and let the smell out. "This is a mixture of herbs that will complete the ritual. All of you need to hold a small pinch in your right palm with your left hand covering it while bunched into a fist. Then I can speak the incantation and Merlin will recover, if everything has gone according to plan."

The knights nodded grimly and thrust their palms out so eagerly that Gaius was almost impaled, and he rolled his eyes as he shakily pulled the top of the pouch open, and reached in to grab a small pinch of the mixture. He deposited it in Arthur's palm, watching carefully as he clenched his left hand and held it over the tiny mountain. He went round the group, pausing each time and correcting the knights' positions until they were perfect. Then he sprinkled the remainder of the herbs over the glaring wound, tossing the pouch over his shoulder carelessly. He'd pick it up later, when somebody wasn't dying.

Merlin was struggling to breathe still, his breaths raspy and hoarse, and he was becoming steadily bluer around his lips and his fingertips. Gaius, his joints creaking, raced around and positioned the knights in an oval shape around where Merlin was lying. There was a small possibility of the spell going round if the people weren't in the correct positions, but he wasn't willing to risk even the smallest of possibilities when it came to Merlin.

Assured that everyone was in the correct places, he bowed his head and uttered the words of the Old Religion, peeking up from under his eyelids to ensure that it was working. As the spell went on, Merlin was steadily becoming a healthier colour and he was breathing more and more evenly, but the wound remained a furious red and leaking a variety of disgusting fluids.

The knights looked a little drained, a couple staggering backwards, which Gaius assumed was due to the fact that they had just been drained of some of their energy that kept them alive, the very essence of their being, albeit a small amount. It was a reasonable excuse for exhaustion, but Gaius was not focusing on them right now.

"You should leave now," Gaius instructed them, grabbing his instruments from a nearby table. At some point, the maid had returned with the bucket full almost to the brim with cold water, and he nodded at Percival to hoist it over to the bedside. "I need to operate to check Merlin's internal organs and I do not want vomit everywhere. I will already have enough bodily fluids on my hands."

"Why would there—"

"Because it would make you all sick, Gwaine, that's why there would be vomit everywhere. I will be elbow deep in Merlin's stomach. Now flee." They fled accordingly, Arthur the most reluctant but still slinking away when Gaius gave him The Look.

Gaius gritted his teeth, and grabbed his sharpest knife. He needed to open the area more, so he slid it down the already open wound to widen it. As predicted, the flow of blood increased but Gaius was prepared for that, soaking up the blood with two rags either side of the cut. Using a delicate spoon, he poked around to move all the pus out into the open and then delicately scooped out the solid, yellowy-white lumps, depositing them onto another rag – really, he needed to cut down on the number of them that he had – and then checked the inside of the wound.

None of the internal organs were damaged, so Gaius removed all of his equipment and let himself rest for a second. Then he dipped the cleanest rag into the bucket and wrung it out so it was just damp, and dabbed at the wound to clean it out. He hoped the chill of the water wasn't too much of a shock for the boy, but Merlin was recovering colour quickly.

He stood slowly and retrieved a needle and thread from his work bench, pulling the thick thread through the eye of the needle. Gaius skilfully pulled the needle through the skin, closing the wound once more and then applying some cream to hopefully stop infection, and then laying a bandage on the wound and allowing the boy some rest.

* * *

A few hours later, when dusk was beginning to arrive, Merlin awoke and squinted at Gaius. "What happened?"

Gaius was highly tempted to reply with, "You got fucked up," but his reputation as wise old physician was on the line, so instead he just said, "Your stomach wound became damaged. I've fixed it, but you'll need to be very still and rest until it's healed." He raised his eyebrows at Merlin, and returned to his work. Or at least he meant to.

Merlin squinted at him again, almost aggressively, and then his eyes flashed gold. Gaius started up in a way that really wasn't good for his bones, and especially not his kneecaps (did he just hear a crack?) and raced over. "What did you do?" he asked frantically, prodding him in various places.

"I just healed my stomach wound," Merlin announced triumphantly. He grinned at Gaius, and then passed out from the exhaustion of such magic. Gaius sighed and slumped back into his chair.

* * *

 _A/N: Poor Gaius having to deal with Merlin and his shit_


	4. Chapter 4

The Power of Time chapter 4

Finally back!

I had exams and stuff so I took a break from writing, then I watched The Walking Dead and got massively into that.

But here we are, hopefully with more regular updates again!

This chapter's kind of a short filler and the action will pick up again next time.

* * *

Arthur was crouched by Merlin's bedside again, poking curiously at his face. "Sire," Gaius said tiredly, "Merlin is not going to wake up any sooner because of your actions."

The King started guiltily, then cleared his throat and straightened imperiously. He joined his hands behind his back and began to stride around the room, looking haughtier than usual. "I am aware of that, Gaius," he said in his most regal voice. "I merely wanted to check his pulse."

Gaius considered telling Arthur that generally a pulse was located in someone's neck or wrist, but then thought better of it. There was no point in arguing with such a clotpole, as Merlin liked to put it. Instead, he grabbed a fresh rag and dipped it in the bucket of water that he kept by Merlin's side constantly. Every hour one of the knights would come in, in some kind of rotation that they'd worked out among themselves, and would replace the water with some fresh from the pump outside the castle.

"Arthur," he said gently, pushing the damp cloth into his hands. "It would help if you could clean his wounds. However small, they could get infected very easily. Regular cleaning will greatly reduce that risk." He set the bucket down next to Merlin's bedside as well.

Arthur nodded, and pulled the blanket aside a little to reveal Merlin's pale and battered side. The ivory hue of his skin only served to accentuate the blue, yellow and green cacophony of bruises that decorated his skin. He winced as he saw it, but set to work dabbing as gently as he could. The small cuts were almost invisible among everything else, so Arthur just swiped softly along the whole of his skin, hoping that he'd managed to get all of the open wounds.

It had been terrifying when he had seen all of that pus oozing from Merlin's wound, when he'd thought that his friend was dying and he couldn't do anything. Thankfully Gaius had been able to do something, but it didn't stop Merlin from being at massive risk still.

Arthur worked methodically to clean all of Merlin's torso, glad to see that the faint sheen of sweat on Merlin's brow was steadily disappearing as the cool water did its job. "Shall I clean his legs as well?" he asked Gaius, startling the old man from his reading.

"Not today," the physician replied absent-mindedly, peering at him through his spectacles. "I wrapped them in bandages just this morning so they're only due for a clean tomorrow."

"Okay." Arthur rinsed the cloth then wrung out the excess water. He fiddled with the rag. He didn't want to leave Merlin's bedside, but he didn't want to just sit there doing nothing either. Eventually he untangled the cloth from itself and laid it over Merlin's forehead, smoothing it down over the heated skin.

A few minutes later Gaius seemed to realise his predicament and brought over a vial with some kind of vile-smelling ointment in it. "Here," he said briskly, efficiently. "I put this on his wounds every night, but doing it in excess can't do any harm."

Arthur took the vial, grimacing at the stink that wafted towards his nostrils, and then reached in to get a heafty dollop on his forefinger. "The cuts or the bruises?"

"Both. Rub it in until it's not visible anymore, Sire. But gently. Merlin's unconscious but he can still feel pain."

For an hour Arthur massaged methodically, making sure to cover every inch of Merlin's skin before moving on. His nose got used to the foul stench and he stopped noticing it, wrapped up in the repetitive massaging motion.

He set the bottle aside when he'd covered all of Merlin's left side to flip him over. He jumped when Merlin spoke drowsily. "Be more gentle, prat."

Arthur struggled for a retort that was sufficiently eloquent and witty, but couldn't find anything. Instead he just said softly, "I'm trying, cabbage-head."

There was a muffled laugh. "My word," Merlin reminded him, before drifting off again.

Arthur resumed smearing on the cream with a small smile on his face.


End file.
